A: I was a political blogger for 8 years before I became a broadcaster. We’ve been broadcasting The Joel Gaines Show for just over a year. Because of our experience with Ariel Publicity and the artists we’ve interacted with, we have decided to revitalize Internet Radio Magazine dot com as a more music-based property.

Q: In your opinion, what does a good song need to consist of?

A: For me to gravitate to a specific song, I have to feel it. I’m not saying I have to be able to relate to the song topic, but I do have to feel like it’s not contrived. Artists who are investing more than time into a track tend to come across more passionately. That’s what I look for.

Q: What is your favorite band or favorite genre of music and why?

A: I have to admit my favorite genre is 70’s funk and my favorite band is Journey. Having travelled to nearly 30 countries, I have picked up an appreciation for just about everything. Shuffling my music player might find Hazel O’Connor, Crossfade, G Tom Mac, and George Straight played one after the other.

Q: What changes in content laws, broadcasting rights, etc. have affected you most?

A: I have broadcast under a station license and as an individual internet broadcaster. Trying to stay in license compliance and keeping your music fresh can be price prohibitive for the little guys. I really enjoy the podsafe offering from the fantastic artists Ariel Publicity promotes.

Q: A recent study found blogs to be more effective than MySpace in generating album sales, do you feel that that is a true statement?

A: I think it is true. A blogger has more specific opportunities to attract traffic and it is easier to be a big fish in a niche pond. On Myspace, no matter what you are trying promote, you are faced with being just another fish in the ocean. I’ve seen social media work for people when they use it as a means to bring traffic to their blog, but it needs to be looked at more as just another tool in the kit.

Ahh, the heartbreak of the clockwork toy. As a child I couldn’t help but notice that even the jolliest of tunes was somehow rendered some what melancholic when played from a music box and in the opening track of this EP Marilyn Roxie captures that feeling with sweet simplicity.

This is a set of miniature sound poems, soundtracks perhaps to long lost TV shows, fragmented by the click of the remote, making a secret kinda sense as they flicker across midnight heavy living rooms.

Some are gone before we even realize it, leaving but a spirit, an essence of otherworldly loss and emotion, others are more complicated, sliding the fear and the danger and the soul across us, trapping us willingly deep into their stories.

Stand out track for me is Green Leather with its intimate eastern tinges and seductive swoon.

Minimal as this fine music is, in each tune there remains, in each new listen, a wealth of images and thoughts to discover.

Go to Marilyn Roxie’s MySpace and get this and many more EPS. And read her great blog as well

This has been the long slow sultry season of the male/female Duet, especially for those who craft their songwriting with a country or shy folk slant, and the opening track of this thoughtful collection continues this trend.

In ‘The Procreation Song’, as well several other tracks here, West’s whispering vocals are counterpointed by the haunting clarity of Lindy Enns, at once removing the clutter of preconceptions and inviting the listener to join in this small circle of casual confessions.

As we continue into ‘lucky number 9` the isolated instruments warmly join together, sliding into introspective side of jaunty, and when the sad violin sneaks up to, lies down with, the minimal percussion of stand out track ‘Heart Hurts’ we are moved, captured and confided with.

The lyrics set out personal sagas of ambiguity, people do sad, silly hurtful things, but the singer remains hopeful, remains true to the power of what love might bring him, them, and us.

A solitary woman alone but not alone, the world around her perfectly described and formed within the song.

Then as if old photos of happy people burn strangely into something else, we wonder about the unspoken tragedy(in the minds eye, a double image of funerals superimposed )that lies throbbing, thrumming at the heart of ‘Wedding Day’.

The skill of the songwriting is breathtaking.

These are songs that NekoCase or even Chan Marshall would be proud of, showing a attention to detail and atmosphere and proudly sigh fully entranced with the sound of country music storytelling.

From the blues tinged ‘Stars fell on Alabama’ to the Guitar driven gentle instrumental, the haunting ‘Going West’ this performer never falters , never sinks into cliché.

It ends with an escape.

Into the comfort of dreams, safe in the knowledge of the mothers love, the song’s love. We watch we listen, from the doorway perhaps, and calmness descends.

A 14 step program designed to defeat the Earnest Emotional Blues. Start, as always, with wonky rippled keyboard then

Progress and/or increase the quirk (so this is what Soft Boy Robyn Hitchcock would sound like if he fronted a toy version of the Lips) are those harmonies or reflections? Then go retro while marching straight forward, hey I haven’t smiled while dancing like this since that girl from that Castle got me on the dance floor.

Now; don’t be afraid to embrace some hotchip melancholy, there is twee and there is free and you have just sidestepped rather well into the latter.

This bedroom pop moves into the living room takes over the family stereo and then hijacks your sisters bicycle. While the flutter of joy flickers on the once thoughtful TV we give thanks for this delightful mess.

Its been ten long years since this duo’s last release,though of course anyone who watches cult TV series ‘Heroes’ or HBO faves like Carnivale, would have heard their themes and scores. A million years away from the glam swagger of their time in Princes Revolution, this is dream rock, slightly scary waves of ambience and sighs.

This brings back the art of the hallucination Pop that Shakespears Sister invented, adding the tension found in Sol Seppy’s Debut and the twist and turn production even Mr Eno would be proud of.

This a collection of songs and breathing, sometimes heavy like rainy mornings or stormy seas, sometimes light as birthday party sparkles.

Then the guitar gets dense and full of barely restrained anger and the rhythms slip and slide out of the comfort zone so cheekily alluded to.

A sly slinky beautiful surprise.

This recalls the best of shoe gaze with out the shy lack of self confidence that crippled that particular tribe. This is music that is touchable yet dark, when Kylie stages her 20th comeback she would do well to sink into these.

This guy is in love with the music, the creation, the joy, the sheer excitement of the scene, the artists, even the look and feel of the equipment, ‘and you can hear the bass from the basement start knocking, Technique Tables, records flopping’

That this soul he concocts is what he needs to live and breathe is evident, and the listener feels safe from the hype and the dull glare of the bandwagon boys that pollute this world. This invitation comes wrapped in a sincere and sensual smile.

From New York, where many songs are shoved together by technicians with a cynical smirk and cold hearts, this SlowDance kid inhabits a world where the bitterness of the hustle and the ego is replaced with a warm optimism, a sensual even refreshingly innocent enticement to Dream Big. To let go and let the chorus move you where it will.

The wonder of this virtual world, this eclectic internet, this crazy cool huge music shop, is that everyone gets a chance to be heard, not just the shiny popular or the bright trendy young things.

Now a man that has opened for the Four Tops, and shared a stage with Smokey Robinson, James Brown and BB King can get his brand of eternal soul into our living rooms.

This latest release is politically charged, full of hope and fire in this new age of a new President in a troubled land. Within ‘ I Have A Dream’the gospel funky lead track, we have the emotions and thoughts of someone who has lived, suffered and dreamed for better days, and the joy of a singer who has seen those dreams start to become reality.

And in the companion song, ‘The Whoto Man’ Brown resurrects the darkness of the turbulent times that led up to this miracle, and calls up the ghosts of soulFolk singers like Odetta and Richie Havens.

All is not just politics though in this release, in 17 self composed tracks the sounds of Motown, Stax and classic Atlantic are lovingly not just recreated but given an historical edge and find their place in the new century.